Asia

India and Pakistan

Growing more serious

WITH luck the latest fracas between India and Pakistan, over the death of soldiers along the line of control (known as the LOC) in disputed Kashmir, may still be remembered as another example of how the two countries are learning to manage the long-running tension between them. Yet the news, on January 10th, that a fourth soldier had been killed in a third incident of cross-border fighting in just five days, is a worrying new development.

In general, India and Pakistan have been going through a spell of relative calm and friendly relations. Kashmir itself has been remarkably peaceful and quiet in the past two years, perhaps in part because Pakistan is making little or no effort to stir up trouble there. Pakistan’s poor relationship with America and its troubled economy have given it an incentive to seek friendlier ties with India.

Pakistan’s civilian leaders, who look slightly less bullied by the military types than before, see reason to reach out to India, for example trying to promote more trade over the border. India’s prime minister Manmohan Singh, in turn, has yearned for a breakthrough with Pakistan. Building on two visits by Pakistani leaders to India in the past couple of years, he has toyed with the idea of going the other way, at least if something substantive could be agreed upon.

In that context conspiracy theorists might say that the current border clash has been ordered by someone powerful who hopes to discourage all this. Yet it is more likely that this is an accidental confrontation that got out of hand. Firing across the LOC is pretty routine. The Indian army says there were 75 ceasefire violations last year alone. Soldiers from each side take pot shots at each other; the Indians accuse Pakistani soldiers of firing in order to give cover to Kashmiri militants who slip into Indian-run territory. And the occasional deaths of soldiers are, sadly, common enough too. In 2012, for example, eight Indians (but no Pakistani ones) were killed on the LOC.

Two things make the current situation potentially more worrying. Most obviously, the number of deaths is beginning to rise. On January 6th India was accused of an incursion into Pakistani-controlled territory, where a gunfight reportedly left one Pakistani soldier dead. Then—although none of the details have been confirmed—in what might have been retaliation, a Pakistani unit crossed into forest on the Indian side on January 8th, was confronted by Indian soldiers, two of whom were killed. Now, on January 10th, Pakistan’s army reports that Indian soldiers shot and killed a Pakistani soldier during “unprovoked firing”. Three fatal incidents in five days is beginning to look like a troubling trend.

The other reason for particular tension is that at least two of the killings look unusual. The two Indian soldiers who died, on January 8th, were also reportedly mutilated--one may have been beheaded. Such details have naturally proved the most upsetting. India’s press have drawn comparisons to the 2000 beheading of an Indian soldier, supposedly by Ilyias Kashmiri, who became an al-Qaeda leader. According to some versions of that attack, the head of the unfortunate Indian was taken to Islamabad and paraded before the then president, Pervez Musharraf.

Whether or not the details of the mutilation turn out to be entirely true, certain quarters in India are now furious—while Pakistanis, too, will now begin to get angry. On the Indian side leading political figures, including the chief minister of Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, and India’s foreign minister, Salman Khurshid, have called for moderation and calm. Mr Abdullah has tweeted that he suspects someone is trying to stir problems between the two countries. But, predictably, hot-headed types have an excuse to vent their frustration. On January 10th a particularly idiotic individual from the Shiv Sena, a Hindu nationalist political party and an ally of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, reportedly even called for India to “nuke” Pakistan in revenge for the border incident.

Another detail is certainly worth assessing. According to a report in the Hindu newspaper, the origin of the whole incident may in fact be a 70-year-old granny who skipped over the LOC, in the same area, in September. She apparently left the Indian side in order to join her sons, who had earlier fled to the Pakistani side to avoid being arrested for smuggling. India’s soldiers were so dismayed to see how even a little old lady could cross the border that they began construction work in the area to fortify the LOC. In turn the Pakistanis objected that such building work violated an agreement between the two countries, and thus tension grew.

Here's hoping that granny’s daring escapade does not lead to a wider confrontation between two nuclear-armed powers. It still looks most likely that calm will return. Despite some talk of this being evidence of the worst Pakistani incursion since the Kargil invasion of 1999, far better comparisons are to other small incidents in the past few years that quickly blew over. For example in October 2011 an Indian military helicopter strayed into Pakistani airspacein Kashmir and was forced to land. The peaceful resolution of that incident was evidence of broadly strengthening bilateral ties. The odds should now be for a return to tense normality, but any more killings over the LOC will darken the mood profoundly.

It has been the modus operandi of Pakistani Army all the while, in ALL its confrontations with India post-1990, to mutilate and kill Indian POW-s. Google 'Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja of the IAF', 'Saurabh Kalia of the Indian Army' to know the full extent of the Geneva violations institutionalized by the Pakistani Army during the Kargil war, 1999.

This comes as no surprise,as the Pakistani Army was the orchestrator of Operation Searchlight - an unspoken GENOCIDE carried out on largely Hindus, and Bengali Muslims in pre-liberation Bangladesh that might even dwarf the Holocaust numbers if the full extent of the atrocity is allowed to be published.

The Pakistani Army was also the main trainer and weapon-supplier of the Bosnian Muslim militia, who, together with the Pakistan Army, carried out genocides on Christian Serbs in Christian-majority pockets of Bosnia during the 1994-1998 Serbian conflict. That the Pakistani Army was posted as part of a 'Peace keeping force', along with Arab-Muslim armies, only adds to the OBSCENITY of it.

Both Operation SearchLight and the ethnic genocide of Bosnian Christians were carried out with implicit complicity of the UK and the US, who still remain the largest financer, weapon supplier and employer of the Pakistan Army.

The ONLY GENOCIDE in Kashmir is the targetted rape and genocide of Kashmiri Hindus, executed by Pakistani Army irregulars, and abetted by local Muslims, in 1989-1990. Once the Kashmiri Muslim understood the true intent of Pakistan Army, they tried moving away, but the vampire squid of Islamism had already latched onto them. The stabilizing presence of the Indian army lets Kashmir live off the Indian taxpayers' money, without a single Kashmiri paying any tax to India.

The world MUST NOT FORGET 26/11, which was carried out by Pakistan army-trained irregulars against innocents in Mumbai, targetting largely Hindus and Jews, and Western tourists.

So this atrocity is NOT hard to understand, as Pakistan is the world's FIRST TERRORIST NATION founded on ISLAMIST BLACKMAIL (and a little diplomatic and military help from the UK), executed through a series of riots, sustained on a hatred of Hindus and other non-Muslims alike. The principles of Pakistani Army are based on Islamism (introduced by Zia in late 1970-s); Peel away the veneer of UK and US-trained 'professionalism' , and you get a jihadi in uniform.

Pakistan's adventurism in Kashmir is designed purely to get UN military observers stationed there, and then try doing a Syria. It knows it can secure a favourable 'observer' list drawn from the terror-financing Group of Five - US, UK, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar. This Group of Five has been active in Libya, Syria, and currently getting heavily involed in Afghanistan.

Pakistan's importance to the US and the UK has always been its ability to churn out 'non-uniformed irregular soldiers' whenever NATO requested Pakistan to. The usefulness of this GLOBAL UNIVERSITY OF TERROR can be attested in Libya, Syria, Bahrain by the US and the UK, who are unwilling to commit their ground forces in formal invasions, and thus, have to turn to Pakistan to supply the boots on the ground, albeit without uniform.
This is the primary reason behind the HUGE MILITARY AND FINANCIAL AID, by the West, to the LARGEST TERRORIST NATION in Asia, and also the DELIBERATE SILENCE of the US and UK on documented Pakistani atrocities. Pakistan seeks its bonus on its 'requested engagements' as well, and hence it has been promised Afghanistan, and Kashmir, by the West, if it can boil things up enough.

The situation in Asia resembles a locality where a pack of mad dogs are being bred and allowed to roam freely in the streets by certain households, with the objective of terrorising the other households into submission.

The Indian political leadership, with its deep personal investments in the West, do not have any reason to kill the dogs and the households that feed and train the dogs. The situation assumes a comical edge when the top decision-maker remains embedded in the nostalgia of his shared legacy with Pakistan.

But Indians have suffered enough. They also know what the priorities of the Pakistan's backers are. So, India will act alone. Pakistan will pay, and its backers too.

This essay calls for cooler heads on the two sides - fair enough. But, with due respect, there are three or four glaring omissions in it.
1) Indians and Indian media are deeply anguished over the earlier torture and murder of Captain Shaurabh Kalia, 23, a rookie and his section of soldiers, who went out on routine petrol of India's Kargil border a week before the Kargil War in the late 1990s - a war which resulted in the Pakistani army pushed out of Indian territory by force of arms.

Sneaking into Indian territory dressed in civies, the Pakistani army had captured Capt. Kalia's petrol party. His body and that of his soldiers were handed over by the Pak. army two weeks later to the Indian army.

The post mortem report on his body showed clear signs of torture - his eyes gouged out, cigarette burns pretty much all over his body, his ear drums pierced, his genital cut off - above all, he may have been treated to the islamic punishment of chopping off of his head as well.

Therefore, this latest beheading of a captured soldier is not the first.

2) The essay mentions that the cause of the latest firing incidents was the Indian army building defensive works in the area where the Kashmiri grandma had walked over to the Pakistani side.

If India is building the works in its territory, why should that be a cause for the Pakistanis to start a fight?

3) The essay singles out a Shiva Sena leader calling for 'nuking' Pakistan. Yes, such talk is not right. But does The Economist not know that in meetings addressed by the Lashkar-e-Toiba such call for 'nuking' India is not uncommon. I note that this essay remains silent on that.

4) Finally, The Economist omits to mention that the Pakistani Army is now getting religious nuts, seriously brainwashed with Salafist teachings who may be seeing the TORTURE AND BEHEADING of 'kafirs' as the performance of a religious duty - a duty that will get them a space in the Islamic Heaven where 72 virgins (is it?) waiting for their arrival.

That is a more serious development. No amount of peace effort by India can overcome that.

More Indians are now giving up hopes of peace with this terrorist nation that continues to bank on violence and force.

I have several colleagues of Pakistan origins where I work. All lined up to get UK passports - some already got. And I generally keep testing their mindset about India and Pakistan situaion.

1. They all admit - Pakistan is no match for India, be it ecomomic growth or be it social development or be it political freedom. Everyone has a favourite scapegoat - Pakistan Army, which is true anyways. But I have known the fact that several of these 'Paki-truned-brits' often active in very regressive Islamic gatherings within UK. I know one chap - he has banned his son from visiting non-Muslim households for the fear of eating non-Halal food and hearing non-Muslim religious words.

2. When asked 'Do you planned to go back to PAkistan at some stage?...the unanimous answer is...'Bhaijaan marwaoge kya? (Brother, do you plan to kill me?) - do you want a bigger proof to prove that Pakistan is a unwanted baggage all PAkistani carry when living overseas.

3. I have noticed all Pakistanis coming together whenever they hear 'Islam Khatare mein...(Islam in Danger)' even it was said about Somalia, Nigeria or Neptune. Never understood the underlined fundamentalism. Personally, having read some of Kuran text they showed me....I come to believe that Islam is a very regressive religion. People, often intellectuals, say that Islam never teach violence or opression of women etc. make me laugh. It DOES promote all such things.

When all pakistanis have been a product of such prejudiced teaching, we can not expect any liberal relationship with Pakistan. Some of school textbooks in Pakistan are so venomously anti-Hindu that it is impossible for us Indian to expect that an adult who is a product of such hatredful teaching will ever be able to be open for peaceful relaship with India.

Majority of Pakistani army has be breastfed with hatred towards India specifically Hindu. So it is anyways bitter for them to accept truce with India. In addition, when truce with India means losing lucrative monies on offer its army, why would they advocate and work for peace. It is beggers belief.

All I want to say is, 'Pakistan is a pasture for Paki Generals'. They know that this pasture is gone if India and Pakistan find a peaceful co-estistance. There will be patches of relative calm followed by unnerving violent erruptions like this.

British propensity to give equal weight to all sides even when it risks distorting the truth is well-known. Be it torture of Lt. Kalia or beheading of WSJ reporter in Karachi, British will never point a finger. I guess that's how you can become shop keeper of the world. I wonder how they even sleep at night.

Wasn't it the same BBC that labelled the 26/11 Pak terrorists merely as 'gunmen' throughout the 3 days of the terrorist outrage that started on 26/11/2008 in Mumbai?
I was beginning to wonder when BBC would start labelling such terrorists as 'Allah's soldiers'/'Allah's Martyrs' et all true in line with its pro-islamist sympathies.

Wasn't David Miliband representing the state of the United Kingdom when he attempted to JUSTIFY the 26/11 attacks in Delhi, as a guest of the Indian state ?

Sunni Muslims and British have a long legacy of co-operation in Asia, spanning around 300 years. The British Rule in India was built on Muslim co-operation, targetted at subjugating the Hindu majority. Likewise, British co-operation with Sunni Muslims in Central Asia started as part of the great game, aimed at minimizing the Russian , and Shia-Persian influence since the late 1700-s.

No surprise to see the propaganda organ of the British state mouthing a predicable defence of its 'associate'.

Just because January falls in 2013 doesn't mean that you can start on a clean slate. Besides, Pakistani soldiers ( just like their Jihadi counterparts) regularly engage in beheadings, genital mutilations & take the body parts of the dead back as 'trophies'. Apart from being a sign of their animalistic mentality, it even deprives the Family and friends from duly paying the final tributes to the dead.

Unlike India, in Pakistan the shots are called by the military, historically. Thus all diplomatic discussions will never translate completely to ground actions unless military is a part of the dialogue process.

Today Pakistan has been deserted by the US and the Pakistan government cannot take head on with the dreaded terrorists like Hafeeez Sayeed and many including talibans, who openly give hate speeches and incite crowd. These outlawed groups have their own agenda.

Pakistan does not mean a single entity, there are 3 segments to it: one the Pakistan general people, next the government and third their military- these three are never coherent in thoughts and actions.It is Pakistan military which takes the call and the government only aligns itself to it.

India is in a precarious position , with a failed neighbor like Pakistan in the west, another failed state Burma at another end, China fishing in troubled waters and India’s own failure in foreign relations and gradually losing out on Sri Lanka and Nepal

These border skirmishes are quite common considering the nature of the border and relations between the two countries.
There are periods that relativily calm and then are there are some that are quite heated up. This has been the norm and given the circumstances will remain so.
Now, why this particular instances got heated up was probably because of barbarism that Paki army showed in beheading the Indian soldiers.
In a disciplined force there is always a respect and dignity associated even with kiling of enemy soldiers.
But given the radicalization of Pakistan and its society, it effects can be seen in the army also and we can hardly expect anything better from them.

Indian army is a dcisplined force, but a capable one. And we will stike back, but at a time and location of our choosing. No one gets away from something like this.

Islamic terrorism in India is NOT happening because of Kashmiri terrorism only. 1.2 Billion Indians are suffering daily Islamist terror as the REAL CAUSE is the NATURE of subcontinental ISLAM.
Subcontinental SUNNI ISLAM cannot tolerate other religions, and has practised genocide and forced conversions against Hindus all throughout the Muslim rule. It is the sheer size of the Hindu population, and the vastness of India, and occasionally, the military resistance Hindus offered, that stopped 'Dar-ul-Harb' from being converted into a 'Dar-ul-Islam' during the 800 years of Islamic presence in India.

Islamic political terrorism started in the Indian subcontinent with the KHILAFAT movement, in which rabid Muslim fundamentalists started rioting and killing innocent Hindus and Christians alike.
Their 'protest' was against the REMOVAL of the ISLAMIC CALIPHATE of TURKEY. Any sane person would pause and wonder as to what events in Turkey might have to do with India. Actually, this 'protest' was a 'front' to secure political space for Islamism.
M.K. Gandhi, ever so disconnected from reality, supported this Khilafat movement under a pipe dream that it might finish what started in 1857, and thus end British rule. The barbarity of the 'Churi-Chaura incident' jolted him back to withdraw his support, but by then, the damage was done. Islamist terror has been given political legitimacy.

The political legitimacy of Islamic terror was recognized officially by the British administration and Indian national Congress alike with Direct Action Day, Aug 1946, in which millions of Bengali Hindus were massacred by Muslims under direction from the president of the Muslim League - Suhrawardy, in Calcutta and in Noakhali. M.K. Gandhi's eagerness to secure political space for his protege, Nehru, was displayed in all its nakedness, with his shielding and patronage of Suhrawardy, and his recognition of the 'Two-nation' theory, a foreseeable fallout of which would be Nehru leading India, and M.A. Jinnah leading an Islamic state carved out of India.

The 'Two-nation' theory created Pakistan, thus legitimizing the use of riots, genocide, rapes and conversion towards achieving the ultimate Islamist goal - a state only for Muslims, carved out of a non-Muslim terrority.
One only has to look at the %-age of non-Muslim population in Pakistan and Bangladesh, from 1947 to 2013, to see its exponential shrinkage in the face of Islamist terror. Non-Muslims are hounded, raped, killed and converted , in a true reflection of subcontinental Sunni Islam.
To understand this persecution, it may be worth examining the name of Pakistan itself - 'Pak' -as in Land of the Pure. Indeed, in its pursuit of purity, it has practised genocide and conversion with impunity, all in the name of religious homogeneity.
Till the 1980-s, the Sandhurst-trained Pakistani military officer cadre tried to insulate itself from this poisonous mindset.
Zia-ul-Haq changed all that, by institutionalizing Salafist Islam in the Army, as well as in the primary education. One only needs to have a cursory look at the Pakistani government textbooks to see the venom they spread against Hindus, Buddhists, and anything non-Islamic. The level of brainwashing may dwarf the Nazi Sonnenkinder program when you consider the size of the population subjected to such a planned propaganda.

So it comes as no surprise when such a brainwashed soul posts a reference to '2 million Brahmins hegemony' in Kashmir.
Denial, vehement denial, misinformation and motivated propaganda are not only the state policy of Pakistan, but also, of any individual bred on the doctrines of subcontinental Islam.

The paedophile Muslim gangs in the UK and Belgium are a direct outcome of this mindset, that sees anything non-Islamic as 'Kufr' - a sub-human worth subjecting to any measure of abuse.

Creation of Pakistan in 1947 legitimized the usage of Islamist terror. This legitimacy of Islamist terror in history has set the wrong precedents everywhere around Asia and Africa, and has emboldened militant Islam in countries from Philippines, to Mali. India fights a million battles everyday inside its borders with those who have been emboldened by this idea of Islamic terror finally getting its political reward in 1947.

This problem started in India, so India will have to solve it too.

When a man sees a Cobra spread its hood over his sleeping child, does the thought of the snake's venom ever stop him from doing the right thing ?

I was born at Lahore and have many friends. There is no hatred in my mind of Pakistan although I think both India and Pakistan should have formed a federal structure rather than mindless partition as large Muslims still live in India and with peace. We have both External Affairs Minister and CM of Kashmir who are Muslims.Pakistan has been in turmoil for one reason or the other and its economy is in worst shape but for US aid. Its intellectuals should at least be honest and fair to acknowledge that 26/11 attack on India was unprovoked and nothing has been done to bring the culprits to book. Kashmir terrorist are sponsored. Now taking the head of a soldier away after killing him is virtually a challenge to the self respect of a nation. Why it is not condemned and guilty nabbed? Pakistanis, most of them Hindu converts, are our own and we expect some fair play and justice from people if not government.If Pakistan army plays havoc with two countries wisdom they should meet exemplary retribution.

(1) Tjhe 24 million Hindus Killed off - well after partition
(2) The 4 million bangladeshi killed off in 71
(3) The people of mumbai
(4) 400,000 sikhs/hindus/jains killedd off in Kashmir at their instigation.

Further Evidence of Genocidal Tendencies
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Kargil affords a perfect example of the value of human life in Pakistan.
Pakistani soldiers were sent in the cover of darkness to occupy Kargil heights 10 kms inside Indian territory disguised as Mujahedeens.

Once discovered and subjected to severe Indian pounding, these soldiers were simply left to die....in order to sustain the myth that these were not Pakistani soldiers.

Here is a country that committed a genocide in its own Eastern Wing...East Pakistan. Here is a country that leaves its own soldiers to die and then refuses to claim the dead bodies.
Here is a country that is mounting a genocide in Baluchistan...where mutilated dead bodies are found every morning on the streets.

So is it any surprise that they committed beheadings of Indian soldiers? Apparently there is a cash award waiting anyone returning with the head of an Indian soldiers.

"Past experience showed clearly that Indian decision maker always eager for the situation to get advantage for it and blame on Pakistan."
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Blaming innocent Pakis for a genocide in Bangladesh, providing terror training camps, safer havens, arms and ammunition to Haqqani brothers etc,cusing deaths to US/Nato soldiers thru IEDs hosting OBL for close to a decade.....
Indeed there is enough to declare Pakistan a state sponsor of Terror.

Watching Indian and Pakistani keyboard warriors bash each other is like going to the opera-you know what each side is going to say and what the response will be - its a tragic unresolved civil war between brothers who have so much in common but have allowed all the warriors set the agenda.
Was not Musharraf born in Delhi and Nawaz Sharifs family originally from Kashmir?
Letting religious bigotry lead the way will condemn the sub continent to eternal tension - remembering that there are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan might open a few minds.
Sadly the gap between the countries has become a huge business with its own interests who rush to the barricades screaming at any sign of "softness" (read common sense) between the two parts of old India.
There would be greater differences between the southern states of India and the Hindi speaking north than between the Urdu/Hindi states of Pakistan and India.
Sadly both countries have developed truly awful sets of politicians descended from the clans of wealthy rotten landlords(again they have this in common) rather than career politicians who might have some interest in real progress.
Until the bigots are set to one side this will continue, curious for two places led on the one side by an Italian Catholic grandee and on the other by an American-funded military gang.